The Flagship Evangelical College, Known for Producing Billy Graham, is Long Overdue for a Serious Examination
Two dear friends and towering figures of the Great Awakening, George Whitefield and John Wesley, once found themselves deeply divided over doctrine. Wesley had taken aim at Whitefield’s Calvinism in a sermon entitled Free Grace, to which Whitefield reluctantly responded with these opening words:
“I am very well aware what different effects publishing this letter against the dear Mr. Wesley’s Sermon will produce. Many of my friends who are strenuous advocates for universal redemption will immediately be offended. Many who are zealous on the other side will be much rejoiced. They who are lukewarm on both sides and are carried away with carnal reasoning will wish this matter had never been brought under debate.”
I find myself in a similar situation regarding my alma mater, Wheaton College. Those I have in mind to bring critique against will be offended (and mistaken) by the fact that I was their student and have “lost sight” of the fact that at Wheaton, “We don’t tell people what to think but how to think.” Still, others will be too eager to jump on the bandwagon and say this article is more reason to suggest that Wheaton is too woke to justify its existence.
And yet, far too many are caught in the middle—agreeing with the substance of the For Wheaton letter’s call for change but either too afraid to risk their current positions by speaking out or unsure if this is the best way to bring necessary reform to a school that has rapidly drifted to the left.
I love Wheaton College. Some of the best years of my life were spent being formed by the classes, friendships, teammates, and professors, many of whom I love and still teach there. Even those with whom I find myself in staunch disagreement, I by no means wish ill will upon or mean to suggest they are not Christian. Many of them, however, have advanced their interests, exerted their influence, and been vocal, while I, for years, have silently hoped and prayed for reform to come from within.
But it has not come, and the school I love has increasingly drifted (or been steered) to the left.
While it is true that Wheaton’s congratulatory note to Russ Vought (‘98) and its later apology are textured by the polarized politics of the day, this is merely a symptom of a deeper sickness at Wheaton. The many other campus rumblings that have made their way into the news are too numerous to chalk up to a “MAGA movement,” and as for my experiences, they predate the Trump era by several years.
What some may view through a politicized lens first began behind closed doors in the classroom. Consider these three examples I witnessed firsthand: denial, drift, and the wrong kind of diversity.
Denial
One of my professors outright declared that “inerrancy was an outdated doctrine from the 1950s.” This is despite the school’s statement of faith, which explicitly states the following:
“WE BELIEVE that God has revealed Himself and His truth in the created order, in the Scriptures, and supremely in Jesus Christ; and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say.”
Upon completing the class, I made sure to include this in the course evaluation. To this day, I have no idea what the school has done to rectify this—if anything. How is someone allowed to be hired if they deny the school’s statement of faith?
Drift
In a class called Christian Thought, I answered a professor’s question about the gospel and the basis on which one will stand before Christ. I quoted 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The professor replied, in what I can only describe as a sheepish whimper, “I don’t necessarily believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ.”
Of course, this is part and parcel of the “New Perspective on Paul,” championed by scholars like E.P. Sanders and later refined by N.T. Wright.
“But Josh, Wheaton’s statement of faith doesn’t require a specific doctrinal position on this.”
Fair enough. But that’s not the point. The point is that on the doctrine of justification—the doctrine the great reformer Martin Luther said “is the article on which the church stands or falls”—the faculty is allowed to hold a novel doctrinal position so long as it doesn’t explicitly contradict the school’s statement of faith.
But here’s my question: If multiple faculty members hold to the New Perspective on Paul, wouldn’t that, in practice, constitute a doctrinal shift from where Wheaton was a generation ago? If you acknowledge that significant theological drift can occur without technically violating the school’s statement of faith, exactly how far can an institution be moved on doctrine and still say they have not changed its beliefs?
Wrong Kind of Diversity
The attention that Wheaton has received lately has caused some faculty to respond on social media. One boldly proclaimed, “We are unafraid to read widely and charitably, willing to critique when necessary or change when our ideas are wrong.” This is the same sentiment as “diversity is our strength.”
But, again, I found this to be false.
When I took my Historical Theology class, we were tasked with choosing a figure from church history to present a paper on. At the time, I had been reading (outside of class) about how Princeton Theological Seminary was reorganized along modernist lines in the 1920s, ousting the conservative J. Gresham Machen, who went on to found Westminster Theological Seminary. I asked my professor if I could write on either Machen or Cornelius Van Til, neither of whom were on the pre-approved list.
She, a Princeton seminary graduate, replied, “Oh, I’ve never heard of them.”
Wheaton certainly values diversity—until you represent the wrong kind of diversity. When it comes to theology, they will welcome you as long as you are to their left or pose no threat. If you are more conservative, the unspoken expectation is that you remain quiet in order to be considered respectable. Yet the conservatives’ silence has allowed the school to steadily accelerate leftward.
That’s why it’s time for the trustees to conduct a theological audit.
The Audit
A theological audit should be twofold. First, it should locate those who are out of alignment with Wheaton’s written doctrinal standards. Second, it should track how far the school has drifted away from its statement of faith and gospel mission over the last few decades.
This audit could be conducted by simply taking the Biblical and Theological Studies Department as a “core sample” of the school and answering these questions year over year, observing the changes in full effect.
1. Professional Memberships
Which professional institutions do the faculty belong to and present at? Are they more theologically conservative, such as The Evangelical Theological Society, or known to be more liberal, such as The Society of Biblical Literature?
2. Denominations
What denominations do the faculty members belong to? Do they belong to associations or denominations that have also changed over time? If so, in which direction are they headed? Are we to believe that those who belong to the Episcopal Church or the PCUSA—denominations that have significantly capitulated to the whims of the LGBTQ+ movement—have had no change in their thinking or what they teach in the classroom?
3. Publications
Where are the faculty’s books being published? Are they leaning toward left-leaning publishers or conservative ones? Which popular-level outlets do they write for—The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, The New York Times? Rosaria Butterfield made waves when she announced she would no longer write for TGC because of its own drift, and yet TGC is evidently still too conservative for many of the faculty at Wheaton.
4. Known Theological Positions
Are there any stated theological positions that would help identify where one falls on the conservative-to-liberal theological spectrum, such as the role of women as elders in the church? How many faculty members would affirm the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, the Danvers Statement, and the Nashville Statement? For Chicago and Danvers, has the faculty seen an increase or decrease in who would be willing to affirm these documents?
What about the 78 faculty members who wrote in defense of Larycia Hawkins and seemed to find no contradiction between the school’s statement of faith and her own personal statement of faith (and explanation thereof) regarding Christians and Muslims worshiping the same God? Doesn’t this call into question the alignment of every single signatory?
5. Tenure
It is a well-known tactic at many institutions that have been hijacked: Once a professor receives tenure, they gain far greater insulation from critique and freedom to voice beliefs that, while perhaps not strictly against the statement of faith, signal alignment with outside ideological movements.
Simply ask: Is it a coincidence that certain individuals became emboldened only after they were in positions that made them more difficult to remove? Has tenure, as currently practiced, become a Trojan horse? How could the process be improved?
6. The Fruit
On the second floor of Blanchard Hall, a missionary display lists all Wheaton graduates who have gone into the mission field. It’s a beautiful testament to the school’s fidelity to its mission: For Christ and His Kingdom. However, as you pass over the scores of names on this timeline, you will notice a substantial decrease in recent decades. Fewer and fewer students are giving their lives to overseas missions for the cause of Christ. Why is that?
Expand this beyond just the graduates of the Biblical and Theological Studies Department and take the question a step further: To what causes are recent graduates dedicating themselves compared to those of past generations? Do we see students living out the spirit of Wheaton’s abolitionist founders by working to end, for instance, the genocide of abortion? Or do we see the reverse—more students, current faculty, and former faculty aligning themselves with causes not only associated with the political left but with a culture of death?
Take a step back, look at the sum of these points, and judge for yourself whether they constitute a significant drift. Perhaps someone will pick up the cue offered here and quantify the data so the trustees can see the facts before they are explained away and dismissed. Professor Timothy Larsen recently suggested that Wheaton’s critics were cherry-picking the data and pointed to the most notable exception to these trends: President Phil Ryken.
I agree. On paper, Ryken does not fit the bill of a theological liberal. But while he has the credentials of a conservative, complementarian, council member of The Gospel Coalition, and minister in the PCA, he is most definitely an outlier to the above trends.
In fact, Ryken’s conservatism is the very reason why so many of us were silent for so long. We believed he would be able to make the necessary changes from within or at least attract other like-minded professors to the school. We haven’t seen that. We love Phil Ryken’s commentaries and preaching. But we haven’t witnessed his leadership keep Wheaton from veering left.
And why should the left complain about his presidency, so long as they can incrementally continue to move the school in the direction they want?
As long as Ryken is at the helm running cover, the more liberal faculty members can simply point to their token conservative and say, “See, we’re a thriving institution. All kinds of evangelicals get along here!” But I can guarantee that an audit along the lines suggested above would prove Ryken to be an exception that proves the rule.
Conclusion
We want the Wheaton that produced John Piper’s passionate preaching and Billy Graham’s evangelistic pleas. We want the Wheaton that unapologetically sent Jim Elliot to give his life for the upward call of Christ—not a Wheaton known for redefining God’s justice for social justice or for re-erecting the dividing wall of hostility by further segregating the student body.
We want the Wheaton that is captivated by the beauty of the gospel, where the faith—the true faith, once and for all delivered to the saints—is integrated with learning, not with novel interpretations of Scripture and subversion under the guise of diversity.
Like most institutions, there will be a day when Wheaton is no longer needed. I pray that Wheaton can be won back so that we do not live to see that day come, lest it join the ranks of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—all infiltrated from within, all spiritually dead. It’s time for the trustees to conduct an audit before the only thing left to conduct is an autopsy.
May the Lord be merciful to Wheaton and bring reform.
For Christ and His Kingdom.
